


you call 911, tell them i’m having a fantastic time

by postcardmystery



Category: Star Trek 2009
Genre: Blood, Child Abuse, Gen, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-16
Updated: 2012-10-16
Packaged: 2017-11-16 10:10:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/538345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/postcardmystery/pseuds/postcardmystery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Must be in the blood,” says an Admiral Jim knows is going to hate his guts in a few short months, and the gold shines on his skin like it was made for him, knows it’s up or down from here but no more plain sailing, that’s for sure.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you call 911, tell them i’m having a fantastic time

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warning for references to physical child abuse.

It’s the smile that does it.

A lesson learnt young and desperate, blood flecked on the inside of his teeth, trickling down his throat, but his grin’s still hot and white and lying. Edge it right and you can get anything you like. The girls like him and the boys hate him — although they’ll grow to like him in kind — and he smiles and he’s smart and Iowa is small and it’s small and space is black and wide and he knows exactly what he is, the same way that he knows that this isn’t forever.

 

 

He goes home, and his step-father has a belt in his hands, and it doesn’t matter what he tells himself, the present is still a very long time.

 

 

It’s small, and everyone knows his name. The only way to start a barfight is with cadets who wouldn’t know Kirk’s son if they saw him in a line-up — and sometimes they  _do_  — and he’s fucked everyone the town’s got to offer, ridden his bike so far he’s reached desert, and he’s run and run and he still ends up right back where he started, staring up at the slim metal cylinders of the Starfleet base, feels the itch beneath his skin and and he revs his bike, turns his back, but it’s still there, it’s still there, and—

 

 

“I dare you to do better,” says a man who should know better, in kind, and Jim breathes thick through a bloody nose, pulls back his lips in a snarl he’s spent twenty years perfecting, already knows his answer.

 

 

The thing is— the thing is, he’s  _good_.

Oh, he’s always known he was good, he’s always known he could be better, but it’s like they weren’t ready for him— machines sing under his fingertips, their mainframe bends to him but he’s careful not to make it buckle, and he solves unsolvable equations in his head, beats his instructor in hand-to-hand, and every cadet whispers his name. He gets better and better and better, and—

“Jim,” says Bones, ” Why does it have to be this, too? For God’s sake, Jim, you’ve proven every last goddamn thing to them.”

“Because until I’ve done this,” says Jim, hands fluttering over a screen, manic with adrenaline and panic and the truth that this time, this time he’ll  _win_ , “Until I’ve done this, I  _haven’t_.”

 

 

If you want to break the rules you have to know them first. He went through all the regs, backed up his back up plans, barely feels the frisson of panic he knows ought to have flared through him when they call out his name in general assembly. He has the right to address the assembly, he has the right to an appeal, he has the right to face his accuser—

A Vulcan. It was going so  _well_ , too.

 

 

Space is black and wide and endless. Jim knows it, he’s done the calculations, seen the math for himself. It passes in a blur, and he’s left with purple ringed at his throat and gold on his back that shouldn’t be there, isn’t his. His eyebrow’s split and his lip torn clean through and Bones is rolling his eyes, telling him to never be  _so fuckin’ stupid again, you hear me, or I’ll damn well kill you myself_.

Jim closes his eyes and closes his eyes and a nurse at his elbow calls him captain. He doesn’t respond because that isn’t part of his make-up yet; the title might be his but it’s not scored deep enough through him to make an impact. She calls him captain again, and he opens his eyes, gives the grin he’s known for even though he knew before he even moved that it’d rip through his lower lip, because it’s expected, and sometimes it’s good to give them what they expect.

 

 

“Must be in the blood,” says an Admiral Jim knows is going to hate his guts in a few short months, and the gold shines on his skin like it was made for him, knows it’s up or down from here but no more plain sailing, that’s for sure.

 

 

“Unpredictable could be your middle name, kid,” says Bones, and Jim makes his grin cocky as cocky gets, spreads his legs wide in the captain’s chair, all eyes on him, and does not think of the scars that would litter his skin if not for the dermal regenerator his step-father kept beneath his bed, does not think of the life left un-lived in Iowa, does not think of a neck purpled with finger-marks and how he thought he’d lost it all, a second time over. He rests his chin on his hand, a flash of gold at the wrist, looks out at the black, remakes himself for the hundredth, the thousandth time. 

“You ain’t seen nothing yet,” says Jim, eyes wicked and grin to match and the thing is— the thing is, he’s not lying.


End file.
